I align most with Nia Frome's viewpoint in Marketing Socialism. Essentially, we can't shy away from loaded terms, liberals will accuse us regardless, so it's more important to correctly demystify rather than taking the "easy" path of distancing ourselves from "tankies," as though "tankie" means anything other than "communist/leftist/anti-imperialist/etc."

We should correctly call out "tankie" as something to not be afraid of, it just means "commie" or "red" or "pinko," and not let the word have power over discourse when discussing leftist politics.

Marketing Socialism

When I was a kid I also believed ‘communists should ditch that label, for PR reasons.’ Now I think we make more headway owning it than dishonestly disavowing it.

^redsails.org

But 'Tankie' is not the ideology at all. There is no reason to defend anything which is not the ideology itself. The word Tankie is so meaningless and vague that the only reason to ever use it is if people are actually trying to push on it. In which case you'd first have to ask them what they even mean by the word Tankie because they probably don't know what it means to begin with (nobody really does at this point).

Using it as a self-identifier is self-defeating.

Except Communism is the ideology and "Tankie" isn't really anything anyone can define.

Using it as a self-identifier makes it so people are less willing to engage and you're fighting on an opponents terms.